The Cool Blue Blog

Anita Dunn's hero

2009-11-13T14:47:17-05:00

Well, Anita Dunn may be done at the White House, but now we know what she adored Mao Zedong so much:

One Beijing shop owner wanted to see what Obama could do for sales. Liu Mingjie created "Oba Mao" T-shirts, with the president wearing the uniform of the Red Guards, who caused chaos during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

Huh.

Incomprehensible

2009-11-12T12:03:14-05:00

Walid Phares writing at The CounterTerrorism blog points out

The shooting inside a US military installation that led to the killing of many personnel compels us to ponder. Over the past few years and months authorities have stopped attempts on similar attacks. The Fort Dix Jihadi plot, dismantled in 2006, aimed at performing a killing of military personnel inside the base. Other cells, dismantled in Georgia, New York and North Carolina also had plans for attacking military installations on US soil. But more importantly a number of lone wolves have also expressed intentions to attack military personnel.

This year, a person by the name Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, shot two US military at the Army-Navy Career Center in a shopping center in west Little Rock, killing one. In cyberspace Jihadi threats against US military in the homeland and against American cities has been ongoing. Information collected by authorities, including from suspects and indicted individuals has shown a pattern by the Jihadists (militants or propagandists) indicating their intentions to strike at military and security installations.

And yet, our Commander-in-Chief finds this current attack "incomprehensible".

What makes this incomprehensible? The enemy will try to win in any manner possible; on the battlefield or behind enemy lines. And make no mistake, we are their enemy.

At Forbes.com, Claudia Rosett writes:

In the media, the question of the hour is how the military could have missed the warning signs of Hasan's impending attack. Such details are important, and it would be a great idea to have better mechanisms (or any mechanisms at all?) within the military to catch the warning signs and act in time. But vigilance of that kind starts at the top. Right now the biggest warning sign of all is a president who looks at a pattern of jihadi communications, recruiting and attacks on America, and tells the public that the bloodshed at Fort Hood is "incomprehensible." Not for the first time, the system is blinking red.

The media is one thing, but signals from the White House are broadcasting that the President is floundering

A senior Administration official said the President did not plan to accept any of the options presented to him in a war council meeting yesterday. Instead he pushed for revisions to clarify how and when United States troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan Government.

While Europe remains steadfast:

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he shared the concern of the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan about sending more troops to the country but stressed that the allies must stay the course and commit more to training Afghan forces.

"We are not in Afghanistan to protect and defend a specific government, but to make sure Afghanistan does not once again become a safe haven for terrorists who could easily spread from Afghanistan through Central Asia and further, not to mention the risk of destabilising Pakistan, a nuclear power, which would create a very dangerous situation," he said.

But what good will such sentiment be if the US gives up?

The Taliban senses confusion in our foreign policy:

"The shooting incident which was executed by the Muslim American soldier Nidal Malek Hasan, against the American soldiers at Fort Hood base in the state of Texas last Thursday, and caused the death of 13 and injury of 38 [soldiers], has caused fright and trance and enormous fears within the military and civil circles in America."

"Silence was declared in the American Congress; Obama considered the incident very confusing and very terrifying in the history of America..."

"The American army has killed tens of thousands of innocent people in two confusing wars and without directions, and lasted eight years; hundreds of thousands were injured, and other millions were displaced; away from their homes and refuges in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it also caused the death of thousands of their own soldiers and the injury of the same number whether wounds, handicap and psychological illnesses. These repeated disasters and carnage have awoken the human sympathy in the souls of the American soldier, and a question has personified itself for them: why are they, and other humans, are engaged in two wars with unclear features?"

But who is unclear? President Bush was never unclear about our goals in this war. Previous Presidents could use the word "Victory".

But not this President.

Fort Hood and all evidence that Jihadists are looking to attack our military at home and abroad makes it clear that the enemy is vibrant and will use all forces available to them in order to obtain a victory.

Will we?

Benign Contact

2009-11-11T12:26:06-05:00

OK, so is there enough evidence for us now to proclaim that Nidal Malik Hasan performed a terrorist act when he shot the soldiers at Fort Hood?

OK, you may not have believed early reports that he shouted "Allahu Akbar!" as he begain firing. Or that he wrote "We love death more than you love life" when referring to people he consider true Muslim's.

But it is no longer possible to deny that he had contact with the al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki who later praised Maj Hasan's actions. Nor is it possible to deny that he had "more unexplained connections to people being tracked by the FBI" than just radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki.

You may call him a lunatic, but what makes him any more of a lunatic than the suicide bombers that he revered?

What is inexplicable is how a muslim Islamist, whose investigation for contacting the likes of Anwar al -Awlaki, could have concluded that his exchanges with the terrorist recruiter was deemed benign contact.

How is any conversation with a terrorist recruiter benign let alone conversation with a known al Qaeda recruiter and a known Islamist serving in the US Army.

But the weeding out of others who are like Hasan will be much more difficult when you have the Army's top guy saying "I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that,"

How about being on the lookout for more traitors in military uniform. The bad part is that Maj Hasan made no secret of his afinity for Jihadists and it is at least likely that he was not reported because "Army leaders would be on the lookout" for people who seemed to be prejudice against muslim soldiers.

It is very true that the direction from the top military brass needs to be balanced. We do not want a witch hunt. But at the same time we can not afford another Hasan either in a war zone or at home.

But General Casey does not seem to be able to strike the right balance. His direction comes down on the side of political correctness which is detrimental to the welfare of our troops and our country.

General Casey should be replaced by someone who can strike the right balance.

MAJ Robert Nesbit Jr.,

2009-10-29T11:27:31-04:00

In the military you adapt to the mission and the hours. For Army MAJ Robert Nesbit Jr., that meant performing about 99% of his missions at night. He was deployed to Iraq from June 2006 to September 2007, as a troop commander.

"Over the course of the tour there were more than a few tough nights,” said Nesbit. "But there was one single night that stands out.” That incident led to him being awarded both an Army Commendation Medal with Valor device and a Purple Heart. It also was part of the reason he received the Bronze Star.

In October 2006, Nesbit was stationed in Baghdad with the 1-14th Cavalry. His squadron was in a neighborhood known as Abu-Dichir, and his mission was to "create a ‘safe neighborhood’ in the squadron’s battle space.”

"At the time there was a lot of violence directed by the insurgents against the local population and we were trying to protect them,” explained Nesbit.

One of the things Nesbit and his team of about 80 soldiers did was place concrete barricades across streets to prevent vehicle access.

"Emplacing concrete barriers always attracted a lot of attention which was part of why we normally operated at night,” he continued.

"On Oct. 22, 2006, we [the Troop Team Task Force] were en-route to start our mission for the night when the Stryker I was on was blown up in an ambush. There were four of us on board who were wounded, said Nesbit.

"Long story short, I got the other three soldiers medivaced off of the battlefield. Even though I was hurt, I chose to stay in the fight. Not for any sense of heroics, but rather, I felt as the commander as long as I physically could still move the soldiers deserved for me to stay and command,” Nesbit continued.

"A lot went into it, and it was a long night, but we got the ambush defeated,” he said.

All of the unit’s equipment was recovered, and they were able to return to their Forward Operating Base.

"The next night I was back out leading the mission. I was awarded the Purple Heart for being wounded that night, and I was awarded the ARCOM w/V for continuing to fight while wounded,” he stated. "There were other nights and other fights, but that one certainly stands out for me personally,” Nesbit concluded.

He received the Bronze Star for his service, work ethic and leadership as the troop commander during this deployment.

Radical encouragement

2009-10-28T11:52:37-04:00

I noticed during the Presidential campaign Mr Obama's distain for free speech; or at least speech that was critical of him anyway. I asked at the time

Is this what we are in for with an Obama Presidency? A systematic attack on the Bill of Rights?

Now that he has become President, we have seen the trend continue with the White House's open attack on Fox News. When called on it by "friendly" media, that is media perceived as friendly to the White House, their words need to be recalled so they are not branded the next Fox News-like organization.

On National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" Wednesday, NPR political editor Ken Rudin said the White House campaign against Fox News is a bad idea. "It's not only aggressive, it's almost Nixonesque," Rudin said. "I mean, you think of what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list and their attacks on the media; certainly Vice President Agnew's constant denunciation of the media. Of course, then it was a conservative president denouncing a liberal media, and of course, a lot of good liberals said, 'Oh, that's ridiculous. That's an infringement on the freedom of press.' And now you see a lot of liberals almost kind of applauding what the White House is doing to Fox News, which I think is distressing."

It's not the usual thing you hear from NPR analysts. Reaction from the NPR audience was negative, and within 24 hours, Rudin was in backtrack mode. "I made a boneheaded mistake yesterday," Rudin wrote on his NPR blog. "Comparing the tactics of the Nixon administration -- which bugged and intimidated and harrassed journalists -- to that of the Obama administration was foolish, facile, ridiculous and, ultimately, embarrassing to me. I should have known better and, in fact, I do know better. I was around during the Nixon years. I am fully cognizant of what they did and attempted to do."

"I apologize for a dumb comparison."

Rudin's full-180 earned warm praise from NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard. "While it was a dumb thing to say, I applaud Rudin for quickly apologizing," Shepard wrote. "Journalists are going to make mistakes -- not intentionally but they will happen. Acknowledging them goes a long way to maintaining credibility."

And thus, disaster was averted.

But it doesn't stop there. In a less well publicized move, the Obama Administration voted to encourage blasphemy laws at the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva a few weeks ago.

While attracting surprisingly little attention, the Obama administration supported the effort of largely Muslim nations in the U.N. Human Rights Council to recognize exceptions to free speech for any "negative racial and religious stereotyping." The exception was made as part of a resolution supporting free speech that passed this month, but it is the exception, not the rule that worries civil libertarians. Though the resolution was passed unanimously, European and developing countries made it clear that they remain at odds on the issue of protecting religions from criticism. It is viewed as a transparent bid to appeal to the "Muslim street" and our Arab allies, with the administration seeking greater coexistence through the curtailment of objectionable speech.

Recall the UN Human Rights Co uncil for a moment

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council was established in March 2006 to replace the 60-year-old Human Rights Commission, which lost international credibility after countries with abysmal rights records, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, were allowed to join and thwart criticism of their actions.

The Bush administration refused to join the new rights body, saying it was not convinced that it represented much of an improvement over its predecessor. John R. Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations when the council was created, said at the time that the United States would have more "leverage in terms of the performance of the new council" by not participating in it and thus signaling a rejection of "business as usual."

Reached Tuesday, Bolton denounced the Obama administration's decision. "This is like getting on board the Titanic after it's hit the iceberg," he said. "This is the theology of engagement at work. There is no concrete American interest served by this, and it legitimizes something that doesn't deserve legitimacy."

The Obama administration and rights advocates concede that the Human Rights Council has failed to emerge as a powerful champion of human rights, saying it has devoted excessive attention to alleged abuses by Israel and too little to abuses in places such as Darfur, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

Participating is one thing, actively endorsing blasphemt laws is something else entirely.

But it seems to be consistent with the current Administrations apparant disdain for free speech.

Hope you're not an atheist.

Or a Fox News employee....

It ain't just Iran

2009-10-27T12:03:53-04:00

It's not surprising to find that Iran is again backing away from a deal that would have helped ease the fears that they are attempting to become a nuclear power. The original agreement had holes you could drive a starship through but even that apparently was unacceptable to them.

But what makes them so bold? Perhaps the knowledge that even though Russia was at the negotiating table, their very reminded Iran that no significant action against them would be taken at the UN Security council because Russia still maintains that they will veto any attempt to place sanctions on the country.

Russia is supplying not only arms to Iran, but nuclear material and expertise. All of this would end if sanctions were imposed. In fact Russia, if it wanted to, could severly cripple Iran's nuclear progam all by itself by simply refusing to supply expertise and material. It could threaten to do so unless Iran yielded demands of rigorous monitoring of their nuclear facilities.

But Russia does none of these and publicly maintains it will veto sanctions.

Meanwhile, Russia itself is stomping on the the President's rhetoric of attaining a nuclear-free world by testing a new multiple-warhead missile that if deployed would be in violation of the existing START treaty.

The missile in question is the SS-27

The Russian SS-27, or Topol-M, is an intercontinental-range, ground-based, solid propellant ballistic missile. It represents the pinnacle of ballistic missile technology, incorporating modern fuel and warhead designs, as well as being capable of being launched from both missile silos and Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) vehicles. Current Russian accounts stress that the SS-27 is invulnerable to any modern anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses. Yuriy Solomonov, director of the Moscow Institute of Heat Technology and designer-general of the Topol family of missiles, has stated that the SS-27 will be the foundation of the Russian strategic nuclear arsenal by 2015.

Now in exchange for the Hope that Mocow would help with Iran, the President gave away the missile defense shield for Eastern Europe. The Bush Administration had always claimed that the missile shild was not aimed at Russia, but at rogue nations who would acquire nuclear missiles.

But you know what? They knew about the SS-27 too.

And Russia knew that such a shield would counter the SS-27 as well as missiles from, say, Iran.

When the President threw away the missile shield in Eastern Europe, he got nothing from Russia on Iran and Russia removed the counterbalance to the SS-27 as well as Iran's missiles.

Back in September, The President lauded a UN non-poliferation agreement, but other world leaders took a more cautious view as expressed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy:

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, came close to mocking his American counterpart for the good intentions, which Mr Obama had heralded as an "historic" step towards nuclear abolition, even though it set no specific targets or fresh mandates.

"We live in a real world not a virtual world," the Frenchman told the 15-member council. "And the real world expects us to take decisions.

"President Obama dreams of a world without weapons ... but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite.

"Iran since 2005 has flouted five security council resolutions. North Korea has been defying council resolutions since 1993.

"I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community? More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map," he continued, referring to Israel.

The sharp-tongued French leader even implied that Mr Obama's resolution 1887 had used up valuable diplomatic energy.

"If we have courage to impose sanctions together it will lend viability to our commitment to reduce our own weapons and to making a world without nuke weapons," he said.

Mr Sarkozy has previously called the US president's disarmament crusade "naïve".

The Russians have expressed the same sentiment with their deeds because such words from the Russians would be counter-productive to their cause.

Who are those folks?

2009-10-19T10:38:22-04:00

The whole TEA Party thing is very confounding to the Left, but it shouldn't be. I and others have been pointing out since the beginning that this was not a "Republican" thing. In fact, the situation that allowed the Democrats to take control of Congress was more about the failure of Republicans to give people what they want (less government and less government spending) than it was about any attraction people had to the Democratic Party.

All that has obviously changed. The budget deficit has surged to an all-time high of US$1.42 trillion and that is without health care "reform" or Stimulus II. People feel burdened while the Left likes to disparage these folks by calling them tea baggers, they forget that what they call themselves is Taxed Enough Already.

But some Democrats and Leftists (in general) have deluded themselves thus far into thinking that these people were shills for the Republican Party; they called their demonstrations "astroturf". But then it became obvious to even the main stream media that these folks were not Republican shills; they're a movment all their own.

The rise of conservative "tea party" activists around the country has created a dilemma for Republicans. They are breathing life into the party's quest to regain power. But they're also waging war on some candidates hand-picked by GOP leaders as the most likely to win.

But even here the media doesn't have things exactly right. When does "Conservative" mean in this context? Sure some are social conservatives, but not most. So some are say anti-abortion, but not most. Some are anti-gay marriage but not most.

What does unite these Republicans, Democrats and Independents is they are all more fiscally conservative and more Federalist than Congress; and in many cases this means Republicans as well.

Begun as a loosely affiliated groundswell of Constitution-waving protesters in tri-cornered hats, the Tea Party movement is now starting to rock the political establishment in key arenas.
The growing numbers of Americans coming out to the Tax Day Tea Party, the Fourth of July Tea Parties, and then the 9/12 Tea Party march on Washington are going back to their home districts and keeping up — even intensifying — the fight for smaller government and more transparency on spending and taxation.

As the evidence mounts, opponents of small government and a restrained Federal Government has come up with a new delusion: That the movement the Republicans started are now turning on their masters.

And they continue with their delusion that any and all criticism of the President and the Democratic majority is racially based. The latest instance refers to a Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple. He was referred to as a right-wing hate-monger.

But it turned out this guy was a life-long Democrat until 2008. I wonder what happened in 2008 that made him change parties?

Here's the situation that has the Left worked up: They are going to lose seats in Congress next year and they are doing their best to blunt that embarrassment now. They are even more fearful that they will lose control of one or more chambers of Congress and they need to do something to prevent that from occurring.

I've got an idea: How about not spending so much, pass legislation that addresses our runaway spending, and pass health care legislation that actually addresses the issues?

I'm afraid that Congress just can not go there the way it is currently configured.

So change is gonna come.

And if Republicans do again get control of Congress, they had better heed the lessons or change is gonna come again.

And again.

Until we get a political class that has some respect for the constiutional limits of federal power.

SSG Jamyn Peterson

2009-10-14T11:48:51-04:00

SSG Jamyn Peterson wouldn’t describe himself as a hero, he said. But during his last deployment to the remote Oruzgan province in Afghanistan from December 2006 until January 2008, the Army Reservist repeatedly demonstrated his dedication to his comrades and to his duties. Peterson was recognized for his service with a Purple Heart and two Bronze Star Medals, one with ‘Valor.’

The second Bronze Star recognized his performance as team leader as “absolutely phenomenal,” according to the award citation. But it was the bravery he demonstrated during an ambush that earned him the Bronze Star with ‘Valor.”

“I was honored,” Peterson said of receiving the medal, “but I was more honored that my guys got them.”

SSG Matt Winters and SGT Ben Mogenson were riding with him on June 16, 2007 when their convoy was ambushed on the road home. When a bomb exploded just feet from their truck, the truck leading the convoy sped ahead to avoid the blast. But they took a wrong turn.

Peterson and his team had a choice: stay on the road that led back to camp or follow their comrades the wrong way into enemy territory. They decided to follow their comrades.

It wasn’t long before the first truck was hit by a rocket propelled grenade that went right through it, forcing everyone out of the truck. And while there were only six soldiers between their two trucks, “there were over 100 bad guys. They were only 90 feet away. You could see them. They were just lined up,” he said.

“It was like hail coming down on the truck. It was like incessant bullets raining,” Peterson said. That’s when he directed his vehicle right into the middle of the ambush to provide cover and support to the disabled vehicle.

“The one thing I remember was that I could have stayed in the truck and gotten killed, but if I got out of the truck I was going to get killed. Pretty much we were going to die,” he said. “Life flashes before you.”

But Peterson did get out of the truck, and was able to set up behind the hood of the disabled vehicle so he could provide cover while the other soldiers tended to the injured. They were able to hold the enemy at bay until Afghan Army soldiers arrived on the scene to help. When the enemy saw the two trucks with 15 Afghan soldiers in it, they started to flee, Peterson said.

“They kind of saved our lives,” Peterson said. “We’d built enough of a rapport,” he said, “that they came to help us.” It was an act which demonstrated not only their loyalty, but also their bravery, he said.

Peterson spoke as highly of Winters and Mogenson.

“They were more aware of what was going on. That’s more brave than me,” he said. “Those guys were aware what was going on and still kept at it. They did a great job.”

Peterson, however, said he is most proud of his work with the people of the Oruzgan province. Working with the local community, he and his team set up the only local health clinic for miles around, a radio station, as well as a primary school for the local children that teaches reading, writing, arithmetic and Islam.

“Any good we wanted to do, we were able to do it,” Peterson said. “Being out in the middle of nowhere, I thought I was in a place where I belonged.”

Despite the enemy’s opposition to the school, the students would get up at five in the morning to walk five miles to school. They would have to skirt Taliban checkpoints to avoid getting beaten, Peterson said.

“They are worried if they’re going to get beaten with sticks on the way to school, and they’d still come,” Peterson said. The enemy “rocketed us twice while the students were in there, but they kept coming.”

“It was a pretty amazing experience. A good learning experience,” he said of the deployment. “That’s one thing that I take away from this, how the human being can adapt to any situation.”

Peterson is still an active reservist training troops heading to Afghanistan.

“That’s what I have a passion for now, making sure that these troops are ready to hit the ground when they go down range,” he said.

Peterson, who will likely redeploy shortly, said it’s important to remember that the army is made up of individual men and women.

“If I don’t go someone less experienced will have to go. There’s an obligation there,” he said. “Somebody’s got to do it.”

Towards a costlier health care system

2009-10-13T11:29:59-04:00

People, that is Republicans, Democrats and Independents want health-care reform as a general goal. And regardless of your "orientation" you want that reform to accomplish a number of basic goals:

1) reduce costs, or minimally do something to flatten the upward trend of costs

2) make it so preexisting conditions do not exclude one from obtaining affordable insurance

3) make health care affordable for people regardless of their work situation.

Now the fact of the matter is these three goals do not not require a "public option" though that is an improbably but possible solution.

The problem currently is that the package being voted on in the Senate today does not accomplish these goals.

Now back when all of this was still being kicked around, the Insurance companies were brought in to help craft the legislation and some give and take was negotiated. The Insurance companies all said that sure, we can do what you want, but you have to get all Americans involved because we need premiums from a large population of healthy people who are not likely to use their insurance to cover the cost of people who are chronically using their health care insurance. And if you free us from state mandates for minimum coverage and allow us to compete nationwide, we will be able to provide lower costs and more options for people.

And for a while, it looked like at least some of that might happen.

But then Congress got involved in the nitty gritty and things got screwed up royally.

The mandate for everyone to be all in got diluted to the point where the insurance companies were no longer able to support the legislation. As a result, they issued their own report to counter the overly-rosy CBO report that was supporting the current legislation and factuallu support their position.

Key Findings

Health reform could have a significant impact on the cost of private health insurance coverage.

There are four provisions included in the Senate Finance Committee proposal that could increase private health insurance premiums above the levels projected under current law:

o Insurance market reforms coupled with a weak coverage requirement,
o A new tax on high-cost health care plans,
o Cost-shifting as a result of cuts to Medicare, and
o New taxes on several health care sectors.

The overall impact of these provisions will be to increase the cost of private insurance coverage for individuals, families, and businesses above what these costs would be in the absence of reform.

On average, the cost of private health insurance coverage will increase:

o 26 percent between 2009 and 2013 under the current system and by 40 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented.
o 50 percent between 2009 and 2016 under the current system and by 73 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented.
o 79 percent between 2009 and 2019 under the current system and by 111 percent during this same period if these four provisions are implemented.

Supporters of the current Senate Legislation got all upset

Democrats and their allies scrambled on Monday to knock down a new industry-funded study forecasting that Senate legislation, over time, will add thousands of dollars to the cost of a typical policy. "Distorted and flawed," said White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass. "Fundamentally dishonest," said AARP's senior policy strategist, John Rother. "A hatchet job," said a spokesman for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Harsh word for folks who were their former partners.

"The misleading and harmful claims made by the profit-driven insurance companies are politicking for corporate gain at its worst," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

But this is a misleading claim in and of itself.

...in 29 of the 43 states that data are available for in the American Medical Association report mentioned earlier, the dominant company in the “full” insurance market is a non-profit company. In state after state, Blue Cross and Blue Shield hold the largest market share. On average, the largest non-profit hold over half of the “full” market share in those 29 states.

And when you calculate out the premiums people will pay with or without this legislation, this is what you get.

What people want is real solutions.

And while the half-hearted attempt to get everyone involved in health insurance is not going to cut it, at least an attempt was made.

Right now there is nothing in the legislation allowing insurance companies to compete nation-wide which would save costs and there is nothing in the legislation that deals with tort-reform which would save $54 billion according to the CBO.

People want health care reform.

What they don't want is smoke and mirrors promoted by Congressfolk with hidden agendas.

Don't capture - Kill

2009-10-12T11:47:09-04:00

Back in July, there were those on the Left who were upset to discover that we at one point had a plan in place to kill al Qaeda leaders wherever they might be.

Since 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency has developed plans to dispatch small teams overseas to kill senior Qaeda terrorists, according to current and former government officials.

The Obama Administration quickly let it be known that current CIA director Leon Panetta nixed the program as soon as he found out about it. The Left was assuaged and Dick Cheney was reaffirmed as a villain. All was right with the Left.

But under the covers, the Obama Administration had a problem. The President vowed to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility as well as the CIAs "Black sites" where terrorist suspects were whisked away so as not to allow other terrorists the knowledge that a high-value information-provider had been captured.

So the question became, with these tools off the table, what does the Obama Administration do with new terrorist suspects they may hunt down or otherwise run across?

The solution appears to be kill them where they stand.

Given the difficulty of detaining high-value terrorists in the United States, Cuba, Afghanistan, black sites or foreign countries, another possibility exists.

"To be perfectly blunt, I don't think that they'll pick them up at all," says Ken Anderson of the Hoover Institution and American University's Washington College of Law, who has written about these issues. "I think that we've actually allowed the courts to arrange the incentives to kill rather than capture."
Many national security experts interviewed for this story agree that it has become so hard for the U.S. to detain people that in many instances, the U.S. government is killing them instead.
Last month, American forces staged a raid on a car in Somalia. The man inside the car was a suspected terrorist on the FBI's most wanted list. American troops did not seize him. Instead, helicopters fired on the car, and commandos retrieved his body.

No messy detention. No icky interrogations. Just good clean blood on the tracks.

Now Leon Panetta may have nixed targeted assassinations of the al Qaeda leadership, but his boss sure hasn't. Predators continue to kill terrorists in Pakistan and elsewhere when it is inconvenient for a ground team to be present, and, it seems, we kill them even when we do have ground teams present.

It's better than capturing them given the environment the President has created.

There are a few drawbacks, however.

One is, we don't get to find out if the terrorist knows something that we should know.

Two, if the guy was innocent, we'll never know and he'll never be released.

But hey. It's the price you pay for winning a Nobel Peace prize.

Colonel Thomas Cathey

2009-10-08T11:48:48-04:00

For Army Colonel Thomas Cathey, April 10, 2007, started out like a typical day. Stationed in Baghdad, he was chief of a Military Transition Team, a group of U.S. soldiers serving as military advisors to an Iraqi Army Division. Together they had been running cordon and search missions in Baghdad, setting up perimeters around small areas of the city and then searching within that area.

“We had been conducting these missions since January. This was in April,” Cathey said. “I thought it was just going to be another typical day in that area.”

But by 7 a.m. everything had changed. The Iraqi Army soldiers running that morning’s mission had encountered enemy fire before the sun was up, Cathey said. And the situation escalated from there.

“We thought it was going to be a normal operation here,” he said. “It was the first time that we’d had this volume of resistance for sure.”

Before long an Iraqi Army squad had radioed for reinforcements, and had taken protective cover in an abandoned building.

“We are down to our last magazines. We are out of ammunition. We’ve got to have help now,” they told Cathey again via radio.

“There was no time. They were out of ammo. There was no one else who could get them. So I made the decision to go get them,” he said. The day’s mission changed from a cordon and search mission to an extraction mission, he said.

Cathey prepared a team of 14 soldiers in four vehicles. While the Iraqi Army soldiers weren’t far, Cathey knew getting to them was going to be difficult. They would have to take narrow alleyways to cross city blocks held by the enemy.

“We did know that as soon as we left …and started down this alley that we would be surrounded 360 degrees, and we would be significantly out-numbered. But we also knew that we couldn’t sit and do nothing and take a chance on these soldiers being overrun by Al-Qaeda,” Cathey said.

“I knew it was going to be tough. But we’d been in the country. We were seasoned guys. We had a lot of confidence in each other,” Cathey said. “I don’t think we ever thought we couldn’t do what we needed to do to get those soldiers out.”

The convoy set out, their vehicles moving cautiously forward down a narrow alleyway. At each intersection they crossed they encountered adversaries. A grenade exploded just feet from the left from tire of Cathey’s vehicle, taking out the power steering. At a subsequent intersection, “as soon as our bumper touched the opening of the alleyway, it turned red with tracers,” Cathey said, describing the dust trails some bullets leave behind to help the gunmen know where to aim. Seeing so many tracers was a signal to Cathey that there were even more bullets on their way.

“I thought we couldn’t stop the mission, we couldn’t turn around. We knew that what behind us was worse,” he said. “We kept pushing forward to find these Iraqi soldiers.”

But as the convoy moved down the alleyway towards safety, Cathey saw another Iraqi soldier waving to him from inside another building. It was a second Iraqi Army squad that had also been forced to take cover.

There was no way to fit the other squad into their vehicles, Cathey said, so they used the vehicles to shield the building from attack while they radioed for help, and then waited for a second convoy to reach them.

But by that time the enemy had figured out their plan, Cathey said. The Iraqi Army Brigade deputy commander made one attempt to send vehicles to pick up the second squad, but they were forced back by the insurgents. Over the radio, Cathey convinced him to try again. But they were forced back again.

Cathey finally had to make a decision. He chose to move the first squad to safety, but promised the second squad that he would come back for them. With his vehicle compromised, he led his convoy all the way through the insurgent-held area and on to safety.

The Iraqi deputy brigade commander was so inspired by what they had done, that he made a third attempt to get the men out, Cathey said. That third attempt was successful.

“They all made it out safely, too,” Cathey said.

“For me personally it was just a very humbling, sobering day,” Cathey said. It was only later on when he’d had a chance to be by himself and clear his head that he realized that they “had been able to pull off a very dangerous mission with no injuries, no casualties at all,” he said.

“Several of my guys were awarded Army Commendation medals for that day,” he said.

The biggest thank you, however, was the next morning when Cathey met with Iraqi Army leadership in the Iraqi General’s office.

“Iraqi Colonel Munam stood there with tears in his eyes hugging and thanking me for getting his guys out,” Cathey said. “I didn’t need any thank-yous, but to me that was the greatest thank you I ever got.”

“It was just doing the right thing to do for those Iraqi soldiers,” Cathey said. “If someone hadn’t helped them, they couldn’t have got out.”

Cathey received a Bronze Star with Valor for his actions that day.

A record of appeasement

2009-10-07T11:51:20-04:00

"When I think of America, I think of the idea -- concept of freedom, liberty, equality. I think these are real human values," the Dalai Lama was quoted as saying today

"I think American weapons, military forces, of course some people take seriously," he said
"But the real greatness of America is your ancestors' principles," he said. "In any case, you must preserve these principles."

Every President since 1991 has met with the Dalai Lama when he came to the US. Today, the Dalai Lama was in town to receive the the first-ever Lantos Human Rights Prize.

Mr. Obama's slight is the first time a sitting president will not meet with the Dalai Lama during a Washington visit since President George H.W. Bush met with him in 1991. No meeting was ever formally on the agenda for this week, but the exiled Tibetan's trip had been planned for years, and earlier this year he had expressed his hope to meet with the President. Last month, White House aide Valerie Jarrett and Maria Otero, undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs, traveled to Dharamsala to confer with the Dalai Lama. The next day, the Dalai Lama's office announced that he hoped to meet with Mr. Obama only after November, when Mr. Obama will visit Beijing.

No other President prior to Mr Obama owed their soul, and the price of their social agendas, to China as Obama does.

The Dalai Lama didn't mention the lack of a White House meeting as he received an award in memory of the late Rep. Tom Lantos, a longtime champion of human rights who died last year of cancer.

The Tibetan spiritual leader did, however, entertain the audience with stories of his past brushes with American presidents. Franklin Delano Roosevelt once sent him a letter, a signed photograph and a gold watch. He joked that he "developed an affection to America" because of that watch and brought it with him when he was given the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony with President Bush in 2007.

Clearly the President does not want to piss off China. But prior Presidents managed to maintain relations with China and meet with the Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama has met with the sitting U.S. President a dozen times, as well as with Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle (including a certain Senator Obama in 2005). Although Beijing complained about these meetings, there were no serious costs to the U.S.-China relationship. George W. Bush met with the Dalai Lama in May of 2001, in advance of his first trip to China, and thereafter made clear that meetings with him were nonnegotiable.

Wow! Walk AND chew gum.

But this is not the first time for President Obama. Canceling the Eastern European defense shield was clearly done for Russian, not American interests.

And talking to Iran is something the Iranian government wants. And speaking of Iran

Obama Cuts Off Funding for Iranian Human-Rights Documentation

For the past five years, researchers in a modest office overlooking the New Haven green have carefully documented cases of assassination and torture of democracy activists in Iran. With more than $3 million in grants from the US State Department, they have pored over thousands of documents and Persian-language press reports and interviewed scores of witnesses and survivors to build dossiers on those they say are Iran’s most infamous human-rights abusers.

But just as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center was ramping up to investigate abuses of protesters after this summer’s disputed presidential election, the group received word that - for the first time since it was formed - its federal funding request had been denied.
“If there is one time that I expected to get funding, this was it,’’ said Rene Redman, the group’s executive director, who had asked for $2.7 million in funding for the next two years. “I was sur prised, because the world was watching human rights violations right there on television.’’

So whose interest is served by defunding these folks?

Let me recall to you the words the Dalai Lama said: "When I think of America, I think of the idea -- concept of freedom, liberty, equality. I think these are real human values."

Unfortunately, it appears, that we have a President who has a record of appeasing the enemies of these human values.

I hope I'm wrong.

The Afghanistan Shuffle

2009-10-06T12:05:20-04:00

Here is the timeline for events in Afghanistan as I see it.

2001: Taliban and al Qaida are driven from Afghanistan by Afghan forces with the support of the CIA, a few hundred Special Forces and a whole lot of US provided air power; they take up residence in Pakistan's Waziristan region.
2003: US invades Iraq and al Qaida declares Iraq to be the front line of their global Jihad:“the most serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War that is raging in Iraq.” - Osama bin Laden
Iraq “is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era.” - Ayman al-Zawahiri
2007: After a stunning defeat in Iraq, al Qaeda retreats to Pakistan and begins to expand their influence and steps up attacks in Afghanistan
2008: President Musharraf is ousted in Pakistan and after a while, Pakistan steps up to the plate and begins to seriously attack al Qaida and Taliban in Pakistan: violence increases in Afghanistan

It seems to me what has happened is clear: Al Qaida, after being pushed out of Afghanistan, decided to confront America directly in Iraq and started an insurgency there. America and its allies, after a while, began a counter-insurgency program which ultimate forced al Qaida back to their safe-haven in Pakistan. Pakistan, after a while, began seriously crimping al Qaida's style in Pakistan and now have no where left to go but back to Afghanistan.

And if we are not there to stop them, that's precisely what they will do: move back to Afghanistan.

Yet, the very fact that the US, now joined by Pakistan has degraded al Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan, forcing them to relocate is now grounds for not doing what it takes to deliver the coup de grace.

Hunted by U.S. drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al Qaeda is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistani and U.S. officials.

So this is half right, because it is very clear from General McChrystal that

In the war assessment he delivered to the Pentagon, he struck a note of urgency, saying that if the troop increases he had recommended were not in place within 12 months, the allied effort risked failure.

If al Qaida and the Taliban are no longer welcome in Iraq, and are forced out of Pakistan, where will our military failure in Afghanistan leave them?

I mean, please, this isn't rocket science.

Right now, at this time we have the chance to catch al Qaida and the Taliban between the hammer of Pakistan and the anvil of of NATO troops in Afghanistan.

If we don't exploit this opportunity we will regret it as much as we now regret not having had the forces in place to eliminate OBL and his crew at Tora Bora in 2001.

Let's instead make the commitment to crush the enemy now when we have the opportunity.

Sergeant First Class Jared Monti

2009-10-01T07:10:10-04:00

The United States Army has a long history of great soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and leaders. Sergeant First Class Jared Monti was amongst those ranks. He was an outstanding leader who constantly motivated his soldiers and ensured that his unit was always ready to fight and win.

Monti enlisted in the U. S. Army in March 1993. In February 2006, he was deployed to Afghanistan with Task Force Spartan and was assigned as a forward observer with the 3rd squadron, 71st Cavalry, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). His career culminated with this task force while conducting combat operations in Afghanistan and helping his fellow soldiers.

On June 21, 2006, Monti, then a staff sergeant, was the assistant patrol leader for a 16-man patrol tasked to conduct surveillance in the Gowardesh region. The patrol was to provide intelligence and interdict enemy movement as the squadron’s main effort moved into the province. As nightfall approached, the patrol was attacked by a well-organized enemy force of at least 60 personnel.

Outnumbered four-to-one, Monti’s patrol was in serious danger of being overrun. The enemy fighters had established two support-by-fire positions directly above the patrol in a densely wooded ridgeline. Monti immediately returned fire and ordered the patrol to seek cover and return fire. He then reached for his radio headset and calmly initiated calls for indirect fire and close air support, both danger-close to the patrol’s position.

He did this while simultaneously directing the patrol’s fires.

When Monti realized that a member of the patrol, Private First Class Brian J. Bradbury, was critically wounded and exposed 10 meters from cover, without regard for his personal safety, he advanced through enemy fire to within three feet of Bradbury’s position. But he was forced back by intense rocket propelled grenade fire. He tried again to secure Bradbury, but he was forced to stay in place again as the enemy intensified its fires. The remaining patrol members coordinated covering fires for Monti, and he advanced a third time toward the wounded soldier. But he only took a few steps this time before he was mortally wounded by an RPG. About the same time, the indirect fires and close air support that he called for began raining down on the enemy’s position. The firepower broke the enemy attack, killing 22 enemy fighters.

Monti’s actions prevented the patrol’s position from being overrun, saved his team’s lives and inspired his men to fight on against overwhelming odds.

Monti epitomizes what it means to be a noncommissioned officer. Because of his personal sacrifice and selfless service to the Army, the men of his patrol are alive today and continue the fight.

He was promoted to Sergeant First Class and received the Medal of Honor, both posthumously, for his heroic actions in combat in Afghanistan. His parents and family members attended a White House ceremony on September 17.

“The ceremony was bittersweet,” said Paul Monti, Jared’s father. “I’m reliving all of this all over again. I’d much rather have him than any medal.”

In honor of his actions, there is now a Combat Outpost Monti in Afghanistan. A new Fort Sill Call for Fire Training Center will also bear Monti’s name. The “Monti Call for Fire Training Facility” will be used to train future joint fire observers. Fort Sill, Okla., is where Monti received his basic training.

Monti is the sixth service member to receive the Medal of Honor during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the first soldier to receive the nation’s highest medal for valor in Afghanistan. Navy LT Michael Murphy is the only other service member to receive the award for actions in Afghanistan.

Monti, a graduate of Bridgewater-Raynham High School, displayed immeasurable courage and uncommon valor - eventually sacrificing his own life in an effort to save his comrade.

A scholarship in his honor will be awarded annually to a local Raynham student through a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, the Jared C. Monti Memorial Scholarship Fund, Inc.

Excerpts of the article are from the Fort Sill Fires Bulletin, March – April 2009 edition, sil-www.army.mil/firesbulletin

Motivations

2009-09-29T12:05:21-04:00

Last week, Britain, France and the US decided to announce to the world that they knew Iran was hiding a secret nuclear facility in Iran's holy city of Qom.

The information was developed during the Bush Administration.

It was three years ago that American intelligence agents began picking up signs that someone was tunnelling into the side of a mountain in the desert outside the holy city of Qom.

But according to The Politico, President Obama had no plans to make the announce when he did

But behind the scenes, the Obama administration was furiously preparing for a major public intelligence disclosure that it had not planned to make: that the U.S. had known for years about a previously undisclosed clandestine nuclear enrichment facility Iran has been building since 2005 in a mountain near Qom.

Interviews with administration and international officials, diplomats, non-proliferation and Iran experts suggest the administration had no plans to announce its suspicions before beginning international talks with Iran next week. But its hand was forced after learning some time during the week of a letter Iran had sent the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna acknowledging construction of a previously undisclosed facility.

And it appears that Iran wrote this letter because it found out that the US knew about the facility at Qom.

Last week, as Tehran finally woke up to the knowledge that the plant’s security had been breached, it rushed to declare its existence to the IAEA, hoping to pre-empt other reports and prove its openness and co-operation.

Now that the information is out in the open, Britain, France and the US are talking tough.

The allies will demand that Iran prove to the increasingly skeptical group that its intentions with its various sites are peaceful and energy-related, as Iran claims, and not for weapons development, as the West believes, the official said Saturday.

These nations now agree that they are less inclined to listen to suspect arguments or incomplete evidence — viewing it as a stall tactic, the official said.

Right. But they've known about this for three years. And in those three years they hesitated in imposing more sanctions and instead engaged in "good faith" negotiations as if they didn't know that Iran was hiding this facility. And even now, for all their new found outrage

But beyond the timeframe of "weeks" for coming clean on Qom, the allies will not give Iran a specific deadline to provide the information about its overall program, the official said.

And President Obama is still proceeding with plans to talk to Iran.

Iran is not fooled by all the saber rattling

Consider:

The "allies" have known that Iran's been lying about and trying to conceal the existence of this site for 3 years.
Despite having this information, the December 2007 NIE in its unclassified "key judgements" report said "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons
program1; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." This assessment that was released to the public was not only wrong, it was intentionally misleading.
Iran had to have noticed that missing from the group of people announcing Iran's "newly discovered" facility were Germany, Russia and China.
President Obama has not canceled his meeting with Ahmadinejad.

Because of what they see with their eyes, not only is Iran unfazed by the West's indignation, it remains provocative.

Iran reported Monday that it successfully test-fired its most advanced and powerful medium-range missiles as part of war games it said were intended to deter the country's enemies.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps tested the Shahab-3 and Sejil missiles in the third phase of a two-day exercise called The Great Prophet IV, state-run news media reported. The missiles are believed to be capable of striking Israel, U.S. military targets in the Middle East and parts of southeastern Europe.

Just last week, President Obama announced that he would cancel plans for a missile shield that would protect Eastern Europe from just such an attack from Iran. This pleased the Russians but did not please the Eastern European countries that would have benefited from plan. The speculation is that this would encourage Russia to align against Iran.

So how's that going?

When asked about Iran and sanctions by NBCs Andrea Mitchell, President Medvedev said

Iran as a state has a right to its own peaceful nuclear program. This is our clear position.
That is what I said to Barack Obama yesterday. I do not believe sanctions are the best way to achieve results. Sanctions were used on a number of occasions against Iran but we have doubts about the results. Nevertheless when all instruments have been used and failed, one can use international legal sanctions.

So, no help there.

The President is hoping that inclusion in the international community is a motivating factor for Iran; that he can convince them that by dropping the nuclear weapons program Iran will get what he perceives they want. And he is probably right that this is what the people of Iran want.

But evidence suggests that this is not what the Iranian leadership wants.

Evidence suggests that Iran's leadership is motivated by

a) the destruction of Israel
b) domination of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf
c) and even, possibly, an apocalyptic return of the 12th Imam

Everything they have done suggests that they need to hold the West off long enough to develop a nuclear weapon with which they become untouchable because they then hold the key to destroying everything the West needs from the Middle East and North Africa: oil.

President Obama is also under the impression that Russia does not want a rogue nuclear nation like Iran around.

But everything Russia has done suggests just the opposite. Russia is helping Iran build it's nuclear facilities. Russia is selling weapons and anti-aircraft defense system to Iran.

Russia has nothing to assure us that their motivations in this regard are friendly to the United States.

So too with China. They also are helping Iran with nuclear and missile technology. Has anyone stopped to think that their motivation may be ascendancy over the US rather than being good global neighbors?

And what was the motivation for publishing an NIE that told us everything was fine with Iran when the authors knew it was untrue?

The State Secret dodge

2009-09-28T07:06:57-04:00

During the "evil" Bush Administration, people who sued the government alleging they were illegally spied upon found that their cases were thrown out of court when the Government invoked "State Secrets" privilege.

Essentially, a litigant would come before the court and say "George Bush and his evil regime spied on me" and Geoger Bush (et al) would say: "Hey, if we proceed with this case, extremely grave damage to national security will result." The judge without reviewing the reason for invoking the State Secrets claim would often agree and say "OK" and throw the case out of court.

The ACLU was frustrated in this way from halting the NSA's "tap the terrorists" program in ACLU v NSA. The Center for Constitutional Rights tried the same thing with the same results.

In 2006, Khalid El-Masri's suit claiming he was wrongful abducted, detained and interrogated was thrown out of court after the Bush Administration claimed the State Secrets privilege. The case was appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court but the SCOTUS refused to hear the case tacitly affirming the State Secrets privilege which it had explicitly affirmed in 1953's US v Reynolds decision.

President Obama, campaigning as the anti-Bush, often expressed his intention to undo all things Bushian including the use of the State Secrets defense. But after taking office, he was not as offended as he was as a candidate.

The question came from Michael Scherer of Time magazine.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. During the campaign, you criticized President Bush’s use of the state secrets privilege, but U.S. attorneys have continued to argue the Bush position in three cases in court. How exactly does your view of state secrets differ from President Bush’s? And do you believe presidents should be able to derail entire lawsuits about warrantless wiretapping or rendition if classified information is involved?

OBAMA: I actually think that the state secret doctrine should be modified. I think right now it’s overbroad.

But keep in mind what happens, is we come in to office. We’re in for a week, and suddenly we’ve got a court filing that’s coming up. And so we don’t have the time to effectively think through, what exactly should an overarching reform of that doctrine take? We’ve got to respond to the immediate case in front of us.

I think it is appropriate to say that there are going to be cases in which national security interests are genuinely at stake and that you can’t litigate without revealing covert activities or classified information that would genuinely compromise our safety.

But searching for ways to redact, to carve out certain cases, to see what can be done so that a judge in chambers can review information without it being in open court, you know, there should be some additional tools so that it’s not such a blunt instrument.

And we’re interested in pursuing that. I know that Eric Holder and Greg Craig, my White House counsel, and others are working on that as we speak.

Well at long last, President Obama's Attorney General Erick Holder announced new guidelines for the use of State Secrets.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced limits Wednesday on the use of the "state secrets" defense, which can block courts from considering cases in which government secrets could be released.

The new standard would require the attorney general and a panel of government lawyers to approve such a claim "only when genuine and significant harm to national defense or foreign relations is at stake."

And who will determine if the new standard has been properly adhered to? According to the Memo released by the Attorney General:

A State Secrets Review Committee consisting of senior Department of Justice officials designated by the Attorney General will evaluate the Assistant Attorney General's recommendation to determine whether invocation of the privilege in litigation is warranted.

B. Consultation. The Review Committee will consult as necessary and appropriate with the department or agency seeking invocation of the privilege in litigation and with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Review Committee must engage in such consultation prior to making any recommendation against defending the invocation of the privilege in litigation.
C. Recommendation by the Review Committee. The Review Committee shall make a recommendation to the Deputy Attorney General, who shall in turn make a recommendation to the Attorney General.2 The recommendations shall be made in a timely manner to ensure that the Attorney General has adequate time to give meaningful consideration to such recommendations.

So, it appears, nothing has changed. The new Government position is the same as the old government opinion: Trust us.

"On paper, this is a step forward. In court, however, the Obama administration continues to defend a broader view of state secrets put forward by the Bush administration and to demand that federal courts throw out lawsuits filed by victims of torture and illegal surveillance," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.

Despite the fact that people like the ACLU don't see any difference between the Bush and the Obama positions on this issue, The New York Times who routinely blasted Bush, found the Obama position acceptable. It's headline says "Justice Dept. to Limit Use of State Secrets Privilege" when it did no such thing.

The Washington Post similarly said "Obama to Set Higher Bar For Keeping State Secrets" and

The Obama administration will announce a new policy Wednesday making it much more difficult for the government to claim that it is protecting state secrets when it hides details of sensitive national security strategies such as rendition and warrantless eavesdropping, according to two senior Justice Department officials.

The new policy requires agencies, including the intelligence community and the military, to convince the attorney general and a team of Justice Department lawyers that the release of sensitive information would present significant harm to "national defense or foreign relations.

Civil Libertarians disagree that the new policy will make anything much more difficult especially when you consider that

Since February, a Justice Department task force of eight lawyers has been sifting through about a dozen pending cases in which state secrets arguments have been made.

So far, they have reversed course in only one lawsuit -- a bizarre case in federal court in the District in which a former agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration accuses the State Department and the CIA of installing listening devices in a coffee table in his home.

(I'm assuming that would be Richard Horn.)

But it is unlikely, as the WaPo seems to believe, that the new "rules" will affect wiretap or detention cases given that the Obama Administration is defending a renewal of the Patriot Act

The Obama administration has told Congress it supports renewing three provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire at year’s end, measures making it easier for the government to spy within the United States.

In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said the administration might consider “modifications” to the act in order to protect civil liberties...

These are the three provisions due to expire:

*A secret court, known as the FISA court, may grant “roving wiretaps” without the government identifying the target. Generally, the authorities must assert that the target is an agent of a foreign power and/or a suspected terrorist. The government said Tuesday that 22 such warrants — which allow the monitoring of any communication device — have been granted annually.

*The FISA court may grant warrants for “business records,” from banking to library to medical records. Generally, the government must assert that the records are relevant to foreign intelligence gathering and/or a terrorism investigation. The government said Tuesday that 220 of these warrants had been granted between 2004 and 2007. It said 2004 was the first year those powers were used.

*A so-called “lone wolf” provision, enacted in 2004, allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of an individual even without showing that the person is an agent of a foreign power or a suspected terrorist. The government said Tuesday it has never invoked that provision, but said it wants to keep the authority to do so.

“The basic idea behind the authority was to cover situations in which information linking the target of an investigation to an international group was absent or insufficient, although the target’s engagement in ‘international terrorism’ was sufficiently established,” Weich wrote.

The American Civil Liberties opposes renewing all three provisions, especially the lone wolf measure.

Now it seems to me that AG Holder's memo is an attempt by the Administration to short circuit congressional action to limit the Executive Branch's use of the State Secrets privilege that would have real restriction. In stark contrast to the new Justice Department guidelines the legislation introduced by Senator Leahy would provide guidelines to the Court regarding when to accept government claims of State Secrets.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) are also cosponsors of the legislation. The Leahy-Specter-Feingold-Kennedy legislation would:

Provide a uniform set of procedures for federal courts considering claims of the state secrets privilege
Codify many of best practices that are already available to courts but that often go unused, such as in camera hearings, non-privilege substitutes, and special masters
Require judges to look at the evidence that the government claims is privileged, rather than relying solely on government affidavits
Forbid judges from dismissing cases at the pleadings stage, before there has been any document discovery, while protecting innocent defendants by allowing cases to be dismissed when they would need privileged evidence to establish a valid defense
Require judges to order the government to produced unclassified or redacted versions of sensitive evidence when possible to allow cases to move forward safely
Establish security procedures to ensure that secrets are not leaked during litigation, including closed hearings, security clearance requirements, sealed orders, and expedited appeals
Establish congressional reporting requirements
Address the crisis of legitimacy surrounding the privilege by setting clear rules that take into account both national security and the Constitution

Now this legislation was originally introduced to the 110th Congress in response to Bush Administration "assertions of the state secrets privilege in cases challenging the constitutionally of several of the Bush administration’s national security programs, including the warrantless wiretapping, rendition and interrogation programs" and was reintroduced when the new Congress was seated.

Back in 2008,

Leahy said, “The State Secrets Protection Act will help guide the courts to balance the government’s interests in secrecy with accountability and the rights of citizens to seek judicial redress. The bill does not restrict the Government’s ability to assert the privilege in appropriate cases. In light of the pending cases where this privilege has been invoked, involving issues including torture, rendition and warrantless wiretapping, we can ill-afford to delay consideration of this important legislation. I hope all Senators will join us in supporting this bill.”

And it seems all of this still applies, but

Hours after the Attorney General Eric Holder announced the new policy, which requires administration officials to seek Justice Department approval before blocking the release of sensitive information, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) praised the White House for its openness and transparency.

I wonder if this means Sen Leahy et. al. will now let their important bill languish.

To me, legislating guidelines that allow the courts to decide the efficacy of the State Secrets claim is much better than allowing the Government to police their own hen-house especially since it is an obvious conflict of interest.

I think that in general for the wiretap cases, the State Secret privilege is justified. It is in cases of rendition and interrogation for which I am least likely to allow the government to just say "Trust Us" and would welcome and independent court review of the justifications for such actions.

Despite the high praise the New York Times, The Washington Post and even Patrick Leahy himself heaped upon the new guidelines from the Attorney General,

Seven major civil rights and open government organizations today sent a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees urging them to pass legislation to restrict the government’s ability to use the “state secrets” privilege to dismiss litigation charging government wrongdoing. Although the Obama administration yesterday announced a new policy in which it essentially promised to use of the state secrets privilege more sparingly, that promise is not good enough, the organizations wrote.
...the new policy does not address all the problems, the organizations wrote. “To ensure proper oversight and an independent check on executive discretion, judges must be able to review the evidence, order the creation of non-privileged substitutes where appropriate, and assess whether there is sufficient non-privileged evidence to enable a case to proceed,” the letter said. “Legislation is necessary to implement these key reforms.”
The seven organizations who signed onto the letter are the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Constitution Project, Human Rights First, the National Security Archive, and OMB Watch.

I agree with the President that these parts of the Patriot Act should be renewed. I agree that the Administration should attempt to police itself with regards to invoking the State Secrets privilege

But I also agree that it could easily be misused and the Executive should have to convince the Judicial Branch that invoking the State Secrets privilege is justified.

Not just itself.

Afghanistan, then and now

2009-09-23T12:21:04-04:00

On March 27, 2009, President Obama announced a major new direction in Afghanistan

Today, I'm announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. And this marks the conclusion of a careful policy review, led by Bruce, that I ordered as soon as I took office.

Six months later, the careful policy review that resulted in the "New Strategy" is being reviewed again.

A senior administration official tells Fox that President Obama and his national security team began fresh analysis of the Afghanistan strategy on Sept. 13 in the White House situation room as part of an on-going review of war policy.
"There's this idea that there's a change of strategy looming,but there are difficult questions to ask as we continue to review this," the official said.

Back in March, the President said

...let me be clear: Al Qaeda and its allies -- the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks -- are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban -- or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged -- that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.

But now, the President is not so clear

On Sunday he said: The first question is — are we pursuing the right strategy?” Even more tellingly, the President said that his core goal was to destroy al-Qaeda, which is not present in significant numbers in Afghanistan.

So the President's thinking now that maybe we can abandon Afghanistan (again) and it might not become a base for terrorists who want to kill us.

At one point, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton told President Bush to listen to his Generals:

General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, who said last week that the war was likely to be lost without a rapid surge of additional troops.
General McChrystal believes that the only way to avoid defeat in Afghanistan is significantly to increase US troop levels to safeguard the population, fight the Taleban and reconstruct the country’s civilian infrastructure — a strategy endorsed by Mr Obama in a speech on March 27.

But listening to Generals is not the top priority any more

In another sign of the stiffening resistance within civilian elements of the Obama Administration to a major military escalation, Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, on Monday expressed “respect” for the general’s assessment, but added: “There are other assessments from very expert military analysts who have worked in counter-insurgencies that are the exact opposite.”

But General McChrystal is the guy President Obama put in charge of Afghanistan, after relieving General David McKiernan of his command, presumably because the President trusted his judgment over that of General McKiernan. And what is General McChrystal's judgement?

In a confidential 66-page report leaked to the Washington Post, General McChrystal explicitly states that he needs additional troops within the next year or else the conflict in Afghanistan "will likely result in failure."

Back in March President Obama said

There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force, and they must be defeated. But there are also those who've taken up arms because of coercion, or simply for a price. These Afghans must have the option to choose a different course. And that's why we will work with local leaders, the Afghan government, and international partners to have a reconciliation process in every province. As their ranks dwindle, an enemy that has nothing to offer the Afghan people but terror and repression must be further isolated. And we will continue to support the basic human rights of all Afghans -- including women and girls.

And now General McChrystal recommends

emphasizing the importance of protecting civilians over just engaging insurgents, restricting airstrikes to reduce civilian casualties, and sharply expanding the Afghan security forces and accelerating their training. He also signaled that he will seek to unify the effort of American allies that operate in Afghanistan, and possibly to ask them to contribute more troops, money and training.

Listening to the President back in March and McChrystal today, you'd think they were on the same page.

But the President's hesitation and re-examination of a strategy that is only six months old would cast doubt on that conclusion.

True, he is facing pressure from the Left and he is faced with a public that is growing sour on the war because casualties have grown since al Qaida lost in Iraq and began focusing more on Afghanistan.

But Bushed faced these same pressures and stood resolute.

You know, in reading through President Obama's speech in March I noticed that he did not use the words win, victory or success relative to the outcome of his new strategy in Afghanistan.

Yet another way in which he differentiates himself from Bush, I suppose.

SSGT Bart Cole

2009-09-16T07:26:47-04:00

SSgt Bart Cole enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduation from high school in 1998 and served overseas several times prior to his two deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

On March 24, 2004, while serving as assistant convoy commander, his convoy approached a U.S. Army convoy near Mushahidah, Iraq.

As the lead vehicle in his convoy came along side of a stopped U.S. Army vehicle, three Iraqi males began firing on the stopped vehicle, wounding the U.S Army soldiers.

Cole and his turret gunner returned fire.

“All I could think of at the time was I hope my Marines and I get to our Army fellows before they get overrun,” recalled Cole.

Exposing himself to enemy fire, Cole exited the vehicle and engaged the enemy.

He ran to the Army vehicle, manned the machine gun, and engaged another insurgent who was charging at the wounded soldiers near him. Simultaneously, the Marines began taking fire from a house parallel to the ambush site.

When Cole began receiving small arms fire and machine gun fire, he crawled up through the Army Humvee.

“I noticed that the .50 cal was unloaded, so I loaded it with an ammunition can that I found in the truck and began to engage the enemy positions while my Marines could rally on my position,” explained Cole. “When the .50 cal ran out of ammunition, I crawled out of the vehicle, took a M249 automatic weapon from a wounded soldier, and then crawled back up through the Humvee as rounds were slapping the truck.”

Cole leveled the M249 on top of the empty .50 cal and began to place bursts into the left over enemy machine gun emplacement. He also directed another Marine to suppress the enemy with grenade fire. Once the enemy machine gun was eliminated, he immediately rendered first aid to the two wounded soldiers until relieved.

Unfortunately, Cole has no idea how the soldiers are doing. His Marine unit was not assigned with the Army.

“I hope they are well and healed,” said Cole.

Due to his immediate actions he was not only able to defuse the situation but also coordinated the secure landing zone for a helicopter to perform a medical evacuation for the U.S. casualties. For his bravery and sound leadership, he was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor.

Charging ahead

2009-09-15T07:12:07-04:00

Candidate Obama was adamant that a new approach was needed in dealing with Iran. He wanted to talk to them. At first unconditionally then he back away from that, but now, he's back to unconditionally

Tehran offered "comprehensive and constructive negotiations" on Wednesday, but did not mention the key issue of its nuclear programme.
While stressing the offer "does not address our nuclear concerns" the US said it is was ready to "test Iran's willingness to engage".

Now it wasn't but a few days since the IAEA, the UN arm responsible for monitoring nuclear proliferation issues, announced that Iran was not meeting its commitments, and worse, on a path to realizing a nuclear weapon

On Wednesday the US ambassador to the atomic energy agency, Glyn Davies, said Iran had reached ''possible break-out capacity'' - the ability to acquire enough fuel and expertise to complete building a nuclear weapon relatively quickly - if it decided to enrich its uranium to manufacture bomb-grade material....
On Thursday, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear affairs monitor, said Iran would not negotiate further with the major powers about its nuclear program, Iranian news services reported.

The Obama Administration had hoped that such a finding and subsequent response would have resulted in the UN OKing further sanctions on Iran. But again, they miscalculated the usefulness of that particular world body.

RUSSIAN Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has all but ruled out imposing new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, brushing aside Western concerns that Iran had made significant recent progress in a bid for nuclear weapons.
Mr Lavrov said he believed that a new set of proposals Iran gave to European nations on Wednesday offered a viable basis for negotiations to end the dispute. He did not believe the UN Security Council would approve new sanctions, which could ban Iran from exporting oil or importing petrol.

But the "new set of proposals didn't include anything about discussing Iran's nuclear program so the Obama Administration decided to go ahead and talk anyway saying "This may not have been a topic that they wanted to be brought up but I can assure that it's a topic that we'll bring up."

Tough talk.

All of this while Russia is clandestinely supplying Iran with advanced air defense missiles not to mention nuclear weapon expertise and equipment.

Additionally, Iran is collecting US weapons and technology on the black market

Iran increasingly is obtaining U.S. military equipment and technology through shipments to Malaysian middlemen that illegally circumvent trade restrictions, according to American officials and analysts.
The U.S. has charged, convicted or sentenced defendants in at least six cases involving Malaysia since August 2008. The shipments have included parts for bombers and items sent to firms linked to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, according to court papers. More Malaysia shipments are under investigation, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

I predict that soon President Obama will discover what his predecessor knew only too well: Iran is not going to negotiate away the nuclear weapons program; Russia is not our friend; the UN is useless; and Europe will continue to do nothing of substance.

That will leave unilateral action.

The question is, what will the President do about that?

And the clock is ticking....

High Water Risin'

2009-09-14T08:47:57-04:00

The Federal Debt subject to statutory limits authorized by Congress was raised in February of 2009 to 12.1 trillion dollars in conjuction with the passage of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the Stimulus Bill). Ten months later, this debt limit is already in trouble and the Obama Administration is not sure they convince Congress to raise it further.

The Obama administration, concerned about the possibility of a big political fight over the national debt, is looking at how it can continue funding the government in the event that Congress hinders its ability to borrow money.

Treasury Department officials are examining tools employed by previous administrations, including disinvesting government retirement funds and suspending interest payments to federal accounts, according to people familiar with the matter. They are also looking at what to do in the unlikely event of a government shutdown.

At issue is the debt ceiling, a dollar limit controlled by Congress that dictates how much the U.S. can borrow. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the Senate in a letter last month that the $12.1 trillion ceiling could be hit as early as mid-October, and said it needs to be increased so the U.S. can continue funding operations and making debt payments. Mr. Geithner didn't indicate the increase he was seeking.

With the U.S. borrowing about $30 billion a week, some economists say the Treasury will need an increase of as much as $1.5 trillion if it wants to avoid another request before the 2010 midterm elections.

The $12.1 trillion dollar limit was an increase from an $11.3 trillion limit authorized by Congress in October of 2008 along with the TARP program to bail out troubled banks.

Ten years ago the debt limit stood at just under $6 trillion, less than half of what it is today and much less then the $13 trillion limit sitting on the table in Congress.

The House passed a debt-limit increase to $13.029 trillion earlier this year, but the measure has languished in the Senate. Senate Democrats say they haven't put together a strategy for passing the increase. It could be added to other must-pass legislation, such as a short-term spending measure to keep the government running when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. The Senate could also take up the issue on its own.

And this number, $13 trillion, is only in response to what we have going on today: It does not account for whatever healthcare reform plan the Congress passes.

In response, many Americans are very worried

In a Gallup Poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 2, 9% of respondents overall and 10% of independents now mention the deficit spontaneously as their biggest worry. That compares with 2% of respondents and 3% of independents a year ago. It is now in the top five among the public's concerns.

And according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll

Half of those surveyed said deficit reduction should be a national priority over increased spending on health care, education or alternative energy.
"I know a lot of people who don't have health care and really can't afford it," said Judy Purkey, a 57-year-old grandmother from Morristown, Tenn., who has raised four grandchildren and is living on disability payments. But she added: "The economy is so bad. You've heard the expression getting blood out of a turnip? — Well, that's what's going on."

So it is no surprise that tens of thousands descended upon Washington DC yesterday to protest what the government is doing fiscally.

Tens of thousands of people marched through Washington Saturday to protest President Obama's proposed health care plans. The rowdy pilgrimage capped a series of conservative "Tea Party" rallies across the country.
As the demonstrators walked along Pennsylvania Avenue toward the U.S. Capitol, the line stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. The crowd was so thick in places that it was difficult to move.

The Democrats want to play down and discredit these folks as shills for the Republicans while the Republicans want to co-opt the movement, But while many of these folks have indeed voted Republican in the past (what? you think many Democrats think like this?) most if not all are very aware that between 1994 (when Republicans took over both houses of Congress) and 2006 (when Republicans lost control of Congress), the debt ceiling was raised six times and went from just under $4.9 trillion in 1996 to $8.9 trillion in March of 2006.

And under Bush's watch, the Democrat controlled Congress was allowed to raise the debt limit from that $8.9 trillion to the $11.3 trillion it was when he left office.

The Republicans can point to the fact that the Democrats have raised the debt limit 4 times so far in the 3 years they have been in control as compared to six times in 12 years for the Republicans.Each raised the debt by $3 trillion but it took 12 years for the Republicans to do what the Democrats have done in 3. And we all know that if Congress gets what they want, it's not over yet.

But that is little more than a fig leaf: The Republicans can only sheepishly squeak that they weren't as bad as the other guys.

Now even with tens of thousand protesting in Washington, it is difficult to say how widespread the unrest is really among the population after all we saw tens of thousand protesting the war in Iraq and that made little difference politically. We won't really know until about this time next year when a new Congress is selected.

But if it is a real, deep movement, the best the Republicans can hope for is that these voters give them a second chance and the worst is that a new Party arises to unseat them (which is, really, what they deserve).

All economic indicators show that people have learned a lesson with this past recession and they are paying down their debt and becoming more frugal.

The government is doing quite the opposite and I have to believe that large numbers of people are wondering why.

And they see the mounting pile of government debt and in their gut think that this is not good.

It just can't go on.

High water risin', six inches 'bove my head
Coffins droppin' in the street
Like balloons made out of lead
Water pourin' into Vicksburg, don't know what I'm going to do
"Don't reach out for me," she said
"Can't you see I'm drownin' too?"
It's rough out there
High water everywhere

-Bob Dylan

Update: It seems it was more like hundreds of thousands marching in DC, not tens of thousands.